The Hunger Games Peeta's Point of View
by KaseyM96
Summary: Could you survive on your own, in the wild, with every one out to make sure you don't live to see the morning? See what it was like for Peeta to be in the Hunger Games...
1. Chapter 1

Part 1- "The Tributes"

Chapter 1

I wake up to an unusually silent morning. Usually I hear my mother carefully sweeping the floor and smell fresh bread being baked, but today… nothing. Confused for a moment I get up and get dressed and head to the bathroom to freshen up. I walk toward the bakery, as I do every morning. Our family owns District 12's bakery. As I walk up to the front door and notice it is locked and the sign says closed. That's when I remember… how could I of forgotten? Today is the reaping…

I feel panic as I rush home and find my mother and two older brothers, Rye and Fintan, getting ready. Rye is too old to be in the reaping, but this will be Fintan's last year. I, unfortunately still have 2 more reaping's after the one today.

"Where have you been?" my mother asks.

"I forgot the reaping was today, so I was at the bakery." I say.

"Well go get ready." My mother says frowning at me.

I want to say something to her, but I don't knowing today is hard enough for her.

After I put on my nice pant and button up shirt, my mother wets down my hair and carefully slicks it back. I don't know why we have to dress up, after all the capitol is doing to us why should we look all nice for them?

When my father comes back from checking on things at the bakery we finally leave. We start to walk down towards the town square when I notice that there are Peacekeepers everywhere. It seems like more and more show up every year. As we get closer they order my parents and my older brother to head toward the stands where all the family members sit.

I start shaking nervously as I get in line to get my finger pricked. Then all of the sudden someone taps my shoulder. I turn around and see its Dally, one of my best friends.

"Hey Dally." I say trying to let out a smile.

"You ok?" She asks worriedly.

"I'm alright, what about you?"

"Just trying to not think about it..." she says looking down at her shoes.

I turn back around just in time. A Peacekeeper pricks my finger and squeezes a drop of blood onto a sheet of paper. He scans the drop and tells me I'm clear.

"Good luck." I say to Dally. And walk away to the stands by all the boys in my year.

It takes another hour for everyone to slowly trickle in the town square. I feel myself slowly drifting off… I'm exhausted. I'm about to fall asleep when I hear the giant clock strike two. The mayor gets up and walks up to the microphone and begins to read. It is the same story every year. He tells the history of Panem, the country that rose up out of the ashes of a place that was once called North America. He lists the disasters, the droughts, the storms, the fires, the encroaching seas that swallowed up so much of the land, the brutal war for what little sustenance remained. The result was Panem, a shining Capitol ringed by thirteen districts, which brought peace and prosperity to its citizens. Then came the Dark Days, the uprising of the districts against the capitol. Twelve were defeated, the thirteenth obliterated. The Treaty of Treason gave us the new laws to guarantee peace and, as our yearly reminder that the Dark Days must never be repeated, it gave us the Hunger Games.

The rules of the Hunger Games are simple. In punishment for uprising, each of the twelve districts must provide one boy and one girl, called tributes, to participate. The twenty-four tributes will be imprisoned in a vast outdoor arena that could hold anything from a burning desert to a frozen wasteland. Over a period of several weeks, the competitors must fight to the death. The last tribute standing wins.

Taking the kids from our districts, forcing them to kill one another while we watch- this is the Capitol's way of reminding us how we totally are at their mercy. How little chance we would stand at surviving another rebellion.

Whatever words they use, the real message is clear. "Look how we take your children and sacrifice them and there's nothing you can do. If you lift a finger, we will destroy every last one of you. Just as we did in District thirteen."

To make it humiliating as we as torturous, the Capitol requires os to treat the Hunger Games as a festivity, a sporting event pitting every district against the others. The last tribute alive receives a life of ease back home, and their district will be showered with prizes, largely consisting of food. All year, the Capitol will show the winning district gifts of grain and oil and even delicacies like sugar while the rest of us battle starvation.

"It is both a time for repentance and a time for thanks." Intones the mayor.

The he reads a list of the past of District 12 victors. In seventy-four years, we have had exactly two. Only one is still alive. Haymitch Abernathy, a paunchy, middle-aged man, who at this moment appears hollering something unintelligible, staggers onto the stage, and falls into a chair. He's drunk. Very. The crowd responds with its token of applause, but he's confused and tries to give Effie Trinket, District twelve's escort, a big hug, which she barely manages to fend off.

The mayor looks distressed. Since all of this is being televised, right now District twelve is the laughingstock of Panem, and he knows it. He quickly tries to pull the attention back to the reaping by introducing Effie Trinket.

Bright and bubbly as ever, Effie Trinket trots to the podium and gives her signature, "Happy Hunger Games! And may the odds be _ever_ in your favor!" Her pink hair must be a wig because her curls have shifted slightly off center since her encounter with Haymitch. She goes on a bit about what an honor it is to be here, although everyone knows she's just aching to get bumped up to a better district where they have proper victors, not drunks who molest you in front of the entire nation.

It's time for the drawing. Effie Trinket says as she always does, "Ladies First!" and crosses to the glass ball with the girls' names. She reaches in, digs her hand deep into the ball, and pulls out a slip of paper. The crowd draws in a collective breath and then you can hear a pin drop.

Effie Trinket comes back to the podium, smoothes the slip of paper, and reads out the name in a clear voice.

"Primrose Everdeen."

A small girl with blonde braids in her hair rises from the twelve year old section and walks out of the stands. She looks terrified. Poor thing, she won't stand a chance. She's so young.

Somewhere far away, I can hear the crowd murmuring unhappily as they always do when a twelve-year-old gets chosen because no one thinks this is fair.

Then all of the sudden I hear someone shout "Prim!" in a strangled cry. "Prim!". I see a girl shove through the crowd and reach the little girl and say, "I volunteer!". She gasp's for air, "I volunteer as tribute!"

There is some confusion on the stage. District twelve hasn't had a volunteer in decades and the protocol has become rusty. The rule is that once a tribute's name has been pulled from the ball, another eligible boy, if a boy's name has been read, or girl, if a girl's name has been read, can step forward to take his or her place. In some districts, in which winning the reaping is such a great honor, people are eager to risk their lives, the volunteering is complicated. But in District Twelve, where the word _tribute_ is pretty much synonymous with the word _corpse_, volunteers are all but extinct.

"Lovely!" says Effie Trinket. "But I believe there's a small matter of introducing the reaping winner and then asking for volunteers, and if one does come forth then we, um…" she trails off, unsure herself.

"What does it matter?" says the mayor. "What does it matter?" he repeats gruffly. "Let her come forward."

The little girl, Prim is her name if I remember correctly, begins screaming hysterically. She wraps her arms around the girl who volunteered for her. "No Katniss! No! You can't go!" she yells.

"Prim let go," the girl says harshly. "Let go."

Then one of the boys a few rows ahead of me, who I recognize, lifts Prim off of the girl. She begins thrashing in his arms. "Up you go, Catnip," he says, in a voice he's fighting to keep steady, and then he carries Prim off to a women whom I'm guessing is her mother.

"Well bravo!" gushes Effie Trinket. "That's the spirit of the Games!" She's pleased to finally have a district with a little action going on in it. "What's your name?"

"Katniss Everdeen." she says, holding back tears.

That's when I really look at the girl for the first time and now I know who she is. She is the girl that was starving to death, the girl I threw burnt bread to, the girl who I never could get out of my mind… Katniss. Now I finally know her name.

"I bet my buttons that was your sister. Don't want her to steal all the glory, do we? Come on, everybody! Let's give a big round of applause to our newest tribute!" trills Effie Trinket.

To the everlasting credit of District Twelve, not one person claps. Not even the ones holding betting slips, the ones who are usually beyond caring. Silence. Which says we do not agree. We do not condone. All of this is wrong.

Then all of the suddenme and the entire crowd touch the three middle fingers of our left hand to our lips and hold it out toward the girl… Katniss. It is an old and rarely used gesture of our district. It means thanks, it means admiration, it means goodbye to someone you love.

Then Haymitch comes staggering over to the stage to congradulate her. "Look at her. Look at this one!" he hollers, throwing an arm around her shoulder. "I like her!" he says. "Lots of…" He can't think of a word for a while. "Spunk!" he says triumphantly. "More than you!" he says releasing Katniss and heading for the front of the stage. "More than you!" he shouts, pointing directly into a camera.

Is he addressing the audience or is he so drunk he might be actually taunting the Capitol? I'll never know because just as he's opening jis mouth to continue, Haymitch plummets off the stage and knocks himself unconscious.

Haymitch is whisked away on a stretcher, and Effie Trinket is trying to get the ball rolling again. "What an exciting day!" she warbles as she attempts to straighten her wig, which has listed severely to the right. "But more excitement to come! It's now time to choose our boy tribute!" Clearly hoping to contain her tenuous hair situation, she plants one hand on her head as she crosses to the ball that contains the boys' names and grabs the first slip she encounters. I take a deep breath as she zips back to the podium.

"Peeta Mellark."

My heart nearly stops… me? No, this isn't happening. I just stare looking around with my mouth open. I have just been chosen to be one of the tributes for the Seventy-Fourth annual Hunger Games.


	2. Chapter 2

Chapter 2

Effie asks for volunteers but no one steps forward. I know that my brother, Fintin, won't volunteer. He loves me, but not that much. Family devotion only goes so far on reaping day. What Katniss did is the radical thing.

The mayor begins to read the long, dull Treaty of Treason as he does every year at this point- it's required- but I'm not listening to a word.

_Why me?_ I think. This cannot be happening.

All I can think about is the day I tossed the bread to Katniss. I doubt she even remembers, but I will never forget it.

It was many years ago when all of District Twelve was mourning from the mine explosion that killed many men. One of those men was Katniss' father. I was in the bakery helping my father when I heard my mom yelling by the back door. I walk over to where she was and she was yelling at a girl digging through the trash bins looking for food. She looked sad and hungry and made her way to the pin where the pigs were. I felt sorry for her so I pretended to accidentally drop some loaves of bread into the fire. My mother slapped me hard across the face and yelled at me saying, "Feed it to the pig, you stupid creature! Why not? No one will buy burnt bread!" So I ran outside with my cheek throbbing and started tearing off the burnt parts and tossed them into the trough. Then I took one look back at the bakery making sure the coast was clear and threw the bread towards the girl. I'm not sure why I did it except for the fact that she looked like she needed it.

Just then the anthem begins to play and then we are taken into custody. The peacekeepers march us into the front doors of the Justice Building. I'm not sure why they escort us except for the fact that maybe tributes have tried to escape before.

Once we get inside I'm conducted into a room and left alone. I had never been inside here before but it is one of the fanciest places I have ever been in, with the thick, deep carpets and a velvet couch and chairs. I sit down on it and run my fingers across the soft velvet. It helps calm me as I prepare for the next hour. The time allotted for tributes to say goodbye to their loved ones.

My mother, father, and two brothers come first. They don't say much except that they love me and will miss me. My mother won't stop crying knowing she probably won't ever see me again. But when she finally does stop she tells me something that I will never forget. "You know, Peeta," She says, "District twelve might finally have a victor." And right after that the peacekeepers order them out and that's when I realize something. She wasn't talking about me being a victor… she was talking about Katniss.

Im ushered out of the room and down a long hallway where im leaded out a door. There is a mob a camera men and people from the district everywhere trying to ask me questions or get me to look into their camera. I just ignore them all. I catch a glimpse of Katniss next to me, she just stands there also looking at her feet. When the train finally shows up we step on board and the doors close mercifully behind us. The train begins to move at once.

The speed initially takes my breath away. I had never been on a train before because it was forbidden except for officially sanctioned duties. For our district, that's mainly transporting coal. But this is no ordinary coal train. It's one of the high-speed Capitol models that average 250 miles per hour. Our journey to the Capitol will take less than a day.

At school, they tell us the Capitol was built in a place once called the Rockies. District Twelve was in a region known as Appalachia. Even hundreds of years ago, they mined coal here. Which is why our miners had to dig so deep.

Somehow it all comes back to coal. Besides basic reading and math most of our instruction is coal-related. Except for the weekly lecture on the history of Panem. It's mostly a lot of blather about how we owe the Capitol. I now there must be more than their telling us, an actual account of what happened during the rebellion.

The tribute train is fancier than even the room in the Justice Building. We are each given our own chambers that have a bedroom, a dressing area, and a private bathroom with hot and cold running water. We don't have hot water at home, unless we boil it.

There are drawers filled with fine clothes, and Effie Trinket tells me to do anything I want, wear anything I want, everything at my disposal. Just to be ready for supper in an hour. I decide to take a hot shower. I've never had a shower before and it feels so good. It's like being in a summer rain, only warmer. I dress in some comfortable clothes and head to the dining room for supper.


End file.
